KIDS ON FILM : Ghosts and Goblins? For Them, No Sweat

In “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” a stop-action animated musical, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, decides to expand his ghoulish realm with a hostile takeover bid of Christmas. (Rated PG.)

Tired of the same old holiday myths and legends? Here’s something completely different. A stick figure skeleton in a long white beard and Santa suit. A red-nosed ghost dog leading a skeletal pack of reindeer that get blown to bits by police cannons. Black-festooned packages under the tree containing shrunken heads.

Mothers might cringe at the images, but “Nightmare’s” bite doesn’t always live up to its bark. It has a moral, after all. And even when it does get particularly creepy, with, say, oozing eyeballs, the kids are up to it. Let us not forget that we’re dealing with a generation that prefers R. L. Stein to Carolyn Keene, “Beavis and Butt-head” to “Father Knows Best.”

“I thought it was really good,” said Chris Gilbert, 8.

Chris’ favorite part of the technical wizardry was the literal unraveling of Skellington’s nemesis, the Bogeyman. When Skellington pulls a string on his foe’s burlap covering, we see he really is nothing but a mass of squirming bugs.

Eeeeewwww.

Chris also appreciated how the Pumpkin King turned himself into a skeleton.

“He has all this pumpkin stuff on him, and then he throws himself on a fire and then jumps into the water and he raises himself out and he looks like a skeleton.”

He admitted the movie’s creative animation was exciting enough to make his young heart beat extra fast.

Not all the visuals are scary, though. Some of the wit is aimed at adults--for instance, Halloweentown’s mayor is a politician with two faces. And sometimes Halloweentown resembles Toontown with a bizarre twist. Take the town’s alarm system.

“I liked it when they cranked the alarm and it was a cat, and it went, ‘Arrrnnooooowwww!” Chris said.

And some of it is mushy. Jack Skellington is the unlikely love object of the rag doll creature Sally.

Chris’ friend, Natalie Smith, also 8, said, “I liked the part when they got in love, in the end.”

Did it bother the kids to think of Christmas with shrunken heads?

“No,” Natalie replied. “It just felt weird. Really weird.”

All things considered, she’d rather have Christmas than Halloween.

“It’d be pretty scary if the two were to get together,” she said.

Chris and Natalie considered for a moment if any part of the movie would be too frightening for other kids.

“My little cousin Kylie would be scared,” Chris said. “She’s 2.”

Indeed, of all the kids in the theater, none left early. Even 3-year-old Colin Stark sat quietly through the whole movie.

Older kids liked it too.

Sara McCarthy, 16, brought her parents, sister and brothers to the movie. Even though her mother found the images “disturbing,” Sara disagreed.

“A motherly reaction,” she said.

Sara liked the musical numbers and the innocence of the ghoulish creatures. “They were all excited about Christmas. It was cute,” she said. “It was clever.”